Product

Documentation
Search

Download: PDF EMAIL PRINT

PVS-Accelerator
Nov 28, 2017
PVS-Accelerator enables a PVS proxy to reside in Dom0
(XenServer's Control Domain) on a XenServer host where
streaming of a PVS vDisk is cached at the proxy before
being forwarded to the VM. Using the cache, subsequent
booting (or any IO requests) of the VM on the same host
can be streamed from the proxy rather than streaming from
the server over the network. Using this model, more local
resources on the XenServer host are consumed, but
streaming from the server over the network saves
resources, effectively improving performance.

With PVS-Accelerator:

PVS and XenServer provide an improved functional

paradigm by providing a unique value available when
used together.
PVS provides support for local, NAS and SAN attached
storage in XenServer.
Environments experience reduced network traffic.
Deployments experience improved fault tolerance, with
tolerance for outage instances of a PVS server.

Important
This feature is only supported on XenServer version 7.1 (or
later) with the proxy capability installed. UI changes only
occur when you are using that type of hypervisor. To use
this feature, an optional package must be installed on the
XenServer host(s). There are no additional dependencies
on the installer.
 For more information on the relationship between
XenServer and PVS, refer to the blog XenServer and PVS:
Better Together.

Tip
Citrix recommends that you do not disable the PVS­Accelerator
feature on a VM using the XenServer console. When disabled using

this method, PVS fails to recognize the configuration change and
continues to believe that the PVS­Accelerator feature is enabled on

that VM. If you want to disable this feature for a single device, see

the sections Enabling or disabling PVS Accelerator for individual
devices and Enabling or disabling PVS Accelerator for all devices on a

host.

Using PVS-Accelerator

The proxy feature is only supported on XenServer with the

proxy capability installed (version 7.1). UI changes only
occur when you are using that type of hypervisor. To use
this feature, an optional package must be installed on the
XenServer host(s). There are no additional dependencies on
the installer.

Before using this feature the XenServer administrator must

create a PVS Site object using the XenServer console. This
effectively configures the storage (i.e., storage repositories)
that will be used when proxying the IO requests. This work
must be performed on XenServer.

Consider the following when using this feature with

XenServer:

A XenServer PVS Site object must be created and

configured with the storage repository (SR) before the
PVS Console can establish a proxy connection on the VM.
PVS calls the XenServer API to check if the proxy feature
is enabled before it exposes any PVS/XenServer proxy
interfaces.
 PVS configures the XenServer proxy for devices using the
XenDesktop Setup Wizard and the Streamed VM Setup
Wizard.
PVS targets are aware of the their proxy status; once the
feature is installed, no additional configuration tasks are
required.
After re-installing XenServer, the PVS-Accelerator cache
remains configured in the PVS database. This causes an
error in the VM setup wizard because PVS assumes that
the cache still exists. To resolve this issue, delete and
then add the XenServer host using the PVS console. This
enables PVS to clear the stored cache configuration.
After the stored cache configuration has been cleared,
the administrator can create a new one in XenCenter.

Tip
In environments where two PVS servers reside with the
same VHD but have different file system timestamps, the
data is cached twice. Due to this limitation, Citrix
recommends that you use VHDX rather than VHD.

Configuring PVS-Accelerator
Use the XenDesktop Setup Wizard and the Streaming
Wizard to access the PVS-Accelerator feature. Both Wizards
are similar, and share many of the same screens. The
following differences exist:

The XenDesktop Setup Wizard is used to configure VMs

running on a hypervisor (for example, XenServer, Esx, or
HyperV/SCVMM) that is controlled using XenDesktop.
The Streaming Wizard is used to create VMs on a
XenServer host; it does not involve XenDesktop.

Note
 This feature is only supported on XenServer that has the
capability installed. UI changes captured in this section
only apply when you are using that type of hypervisor.

Tip
When a proxy cache configuration (i.e., PVS-Accelerator is
enabled) is tied to a PVS server, and you reinstall XenServer
. on the host that had this feature enabled, PVS and
XenServer become out of sync. This occurs because the
reinstallation of XenServer wipes the previously configured
proxy cache configuration.

In this scenario, PVS assumes that the proxy cache

configuration still exists, and when the Streamed VM
Setup Wizard is used, it fails, indicating that the provided
UUID (associated with the proxy configuration) is invalid.
For this reason, the user must delete all previously
configured VMs associated with this cache configuration,
including the host. After accomplishing this, reconfigure
PVS and setup the cache again.

To configure PVS-Accelerator, select one of the Wizards

based on how you intend to use it (XenDesktop Setup
Wizard or Streamed VM Setup Wizard) in the PVS Console:

1. Navigate to a site.
2. Select the site, then right click to expose a contextual
menu:
3. Select the appropriate Wizard based on how you intend
to use the PVS-Accelerator feature.

Using Wizards to configure PVS-

Accelerator
To use PVS-Accelerator, first determine how you will use it.
If you are:

configuring VMs running on a hypervisor controlled by

XenDesktop, use the XenDesktop Setup Wizard.
creating VMs on a XenServer host that does not involve
XenDesktop, use the Streamed VM Setup Wizard.

Configure Proxy-Accelerator using the Streamed VM

Setup Wizard

The Streamed Virtual Machine Setup Wizard was modified

to include a new checkbox to enable the feature. After
invoking the Wizard, select Enable PVS-Accelerator for all
Virtual Machines:
 Tip
After selecting Enable PVS-Accelerator for all Virtual
Machines, all VMs that are created using the Wizard are
configured to use the proxy feature.

After enabling this feature, the following screen appears

(the first time PVS-Accelerator is enabled for the host) after
clicking Next:

Tip
The Wizard allows you to select the XenServer PVS Site to
which you want to apply PVS-Accelerator functionality. In
the XenServer screen, a drop down list displays the list of
all the PVS Site objects on XenServer that have been
configured but not yet associated with a PVS site.
In the drop down menu, select a PVS Site to associate with
PVS-Accelerator functionality. After selecting it, the site is
now associated with the PVS site that was selected from
which to run the Wizard.

Note
The next time this Wizard is run for the same PVS site
using the same XenServer, this page is not displayed.

After using one of the Wizards to configure the PVS-

Accelerator feature, the Summary screen appears
illustrating the current state; use this screen to determine if
it is enabled, and the current cache configuration
associated with it.

Click Finish to apply the configuration:

Enabling or disabling PVS-Accelerator for

individual devices
If a device was created using either Wizard (XenDesktop
Setup Wizard or the Streaming Wizard), and PVS-
Accelerator was configured for that XenServer host in the
Wizard, you can use the Target Device Properties screen to
enable or disable PVS-Accelerator for an individual device.

To enable or disable PVS-Accelerator for an individual

device:

1. Access the Target Device Properties screen.

2. In the General tab, select (or deselect) PVS-Accelerator

Configured.

3. Click OK to apply the change.

Disabling PVS-Accelerator for all devices

on a host
If PVS-Accelerator was enabled for a host, you can disable it
using the Virtual Host Connection Properties screen for all
devices on the specified host.

Important
 You cannot use the Virtual Host Connection Properties
screen to enable PVS-Accelerator on the specified host.
You must enable the feature using one of the Wizards
(XenDesktop Setup Wizard or Streamed Wizard) while
creating new devices.

To disable PVS-Accelerator for all devices on the specified

host:

1. Access the Virtual Host Connection Properties screen.

2. In the General tab, select (or deselect) PVS-Accelerator

Enabled.

3. You will be prompted to confirm the following action:

4. After verifying the action, click OK to apply the change.

Was this helpful? Yes No

Give us your feedback

© 1999-2017 Citrix Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Terms of Use